Centre Dominates at MEA Awards

The Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre has dominated Australia’s leading events industry awards, winning a best-ever four categories in last night’s Meetings & Events Australia (MEA) National Awards.The Centre won the top awards for Meeting Venue – 500 delegates or more, Banquet and Catering, In-House AV services and Corporate Social Responsibility, announced at MEA’s annual awards gala in Brisbane.Centre Chief Executive Ton van Amerongen said the four awards provided a welcome endorsement of the Centre’s standing as Australia’s leading conference venue.“The Centre has placed a very strong emphasis on innovation and creativity,” Mr van Amerongen said. “Our ambition has always been to offer not just a first-class facility in one of the world’s most enviable locations, but also an extremely high level of in-house expertise. “We’re especially pleased to be recognised in areas like catering and audio visual services, because these are some of the fields in which the Centre has strived to provide standards and skills that simply aren’t available elsewhere,” he said. “And being named Australia’s best large-scale venue is a great honour given the effort and investment we’ve put into constant improvement and renewal at the Centre.” The MEA awards come one month after the Centre was given the same honours in the association’s NSW awards. They were based on detailed submissions outlining the Centre’s business processes, innovations and demonstrated excellence within the business events sector. Using case studies of various events, the submissions highlighted the Centre’s role in assisting organisers to reach their objectives, through flexible meeting spaces, creative technical production and design, innovative menus and environmental initiatives to make events more sustainable.The MEA award for Corporate Social Responsibility was awarded jointly to the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre and the Melbourne Convention and Visitors Bureau. Source = Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre